This week in dance music: San Francisco’s Portola festival announced a massive 2024 lineup, we looked at why artists are moving their TikTok remixes off of Spotify, Marshmello and Kane Brown made chart history with their track “Miles On It” becoming the first track to hot the top five of both Hot Dance/Electronic Songs and Hot Country Songs, Chicago announced citywide celebrations for the 40th anniversary of house music, Paramount+ announced that a documentary about the Nova Music Festival massacre will be coming to the platform and French electronic pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre performed with Queen’s Brian May in Slovakia.
And of course, here are the best new dance tracks of the week.
Peggy Gou, “Lobster Telephone”
Weeks ahead of the release of her debut album, I Hear You, Peggy Gou has delivered the project’s fourth single, “Lobster Telephone.” Gou’s favorite song from the 10-track album (according to a press release) the dreamy house production also function as the project’s spiritual and aesthetic center, fitting squarely in the wheelhouse of the album’s heavy ’90s dance music influence. In her recent Billboard cover story, Gou said that I Hear You (out June 7 via XL Recordings) will be a success to her if people listen to it and “get a feeling.” Emanating warmth, this one feels a lot like the summer season ahead.
Bebe Rexha, “Chase It (Mmm Da Da Da) “
Bebe Rexha debuted her latest track “Chase” last month at Coachella, and today delivers the song in its most fully realized format, via a slick (and quite sexy) racing-themed video filmed between the L.A. river and a mechanic’s garage. The clip features Rexha and a crew of dancers demonstrating the pop-lock-and-wiggle potential of the song, which was produced by Chris Lake and Sammy Virji (who released their own collaboration “Summertime Blues” late last month), along with Punctual and Marco Straus. This dance-focused project is no surprise, given that Rexha has one biggest dance hits of the last few years with her David Guetta collab “I’m Good (Blue),” which spent 55 weeks at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs.
Shygirl feat. Danny L. Harle, “Encore”
“Buy a drink, take a shot/ Spill a bit/ Lick it up,” purrs Shygirl on her latest, “Encore.” The track whips up a spirit of hedonism with both these and other mature-themes lyrics in tandem with a thick, skittering electro production that’s well-matched with a music video capturing the type of late night behavior the song is designed to soundtrack and elicit. A collaboration with British producer Danny L. Harle, “Encore” comes from Shygirl’s forthcoming Club Shy Rmx EP, a collection of remixes of her 2024 Club Shy project by artists including VTSS, Logic1000, X-Coast and Fedde Le Grand. (Both projects are out via Because Music.) The London-based artist is on tour in the U.S. and Europe this summer and will go on the road with Charli XCX and Troye Sivan for their ravey 21-date Sweat tour starting in September.
John Summit & Sub Focus feat. Julia Church, “Go Back”
On his latest, “Go Back,” John Summit takes the progressive house style that’s coming to define his growing catalog and injects it with a dose of d’n’b via the help of U.K. genre star Sub Focus. Together, the guys — along with South Africa-born, London-based vocalist Julia Church — create a track with the same sort of ecstasy-laced emotiveness of other Summit hits like “Where You Are,” with this one getting a slightly harder, higher BPM treatment via a final third that’s fully dancefloor d’n’b. Out via Summit’s own Experts Only label, the song will surely be heard during his set EDC Las Vegas this weekend, with this stop coming amid a heavy summer tour schedule and a sold out show at Madison Square Garden on June 29.
Fatboy Slim feat. Dan Diamond & Luca Guerrieri, “Role Model”
The 500th release on Fatboy Slim’s Southern Fried Records is, appropriately, a Fatboy Slim track. Spicy and psychedelic in the style of any given Fatboy Slim set, “Role Model” is all scintillating percussion, cowbell, sirens and a tongue in cheek vocal from Dan Diamond about behaviors that could be considered role model material, depending on the type of person you are. Altogether, it’s high-quality dancefloor fare with an absurdist attitude, classic Fatboy Slim output. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Southern Fried Records was launched to release music by Fatboy Slim’s alias Mighty Dub Katz and over the years has released an eclectic mix of music by artists like Armand van Helden and Crookers.
